The London Metal Exchange is in flux after the departure of CEO Garry Jones at the beginning of the year. That leaves interim CEO Matt Chamberlain with structural problems to address and a “hugely ambitious” deployment plan for 2017. In this JLN Exchange Leader Video, Chamberlain outlines these plans and the existential issues facing the exchange. The highlight for LME in 2016 was LME’s steel scrap and rebar contracts. Introduced in late 2015, the contracts picked up traction in 2016. LME wanted to avoid shoehorning new products into their preexisting contract format. The steel contracts were a departure from the…

Sometimes the best ideas are worth waiting 139 years for. On August 9, 2016, the World Gold Council and the London Metal Exchange, together with a consortium of banks, announced a planned launch of LMEprecious, a new platform for spot, daily and monthly futures, options and calendar spread contracts for gold and silver, with platinum and palladium planned for down the road. This will mark the second attempt at a gold futures contract at the 139-year-old LME. The previous one, London Gold Futures Market, launched in 1982 and never really caught on. It was shuttered three years later. In an early-morning interview…

Last year represented the first full year in which London Metal Exchange was under the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing umbrella. Now the exchange is looking forward to expanding through new products, users and via its relatively new clearing house, LME Clear. The LME battled some major commodity headwinds in 2015, with metals prices falling anywhere from 25- to 45 percent, and many firms pulling out of the market due to risk concerns, mine closures and various mining and banking staff reductions. LME’s volumes dipped 4.3 percent in 2015 to 169 million, down from 177 million a year earlier. “Against…

At last fall’s FIA Expo Chicago, John Lothian News partnered with Cinnober Financial Technology to bring you industry conversations, where we conduct short interviews with industry participants on the important topics facing the financial markets. The 2015 theme is “Sweet 16: The Tops For 2016.” What technology, regulation, exchange or macroeconomic issue or trend will be most important to our industry next year? We will take the 16 best ideas and thoughts and package them in a John Lothian News video series. Here is what our participants had to say: Part 1 – Exchanges: Exchange leaders will be dealing with…

Talking about Asia often leaves professionals from those regions a bit tongue-tied. When JLN decided to do a special report talking about Asia, many of those experts had the same question: “Which country? Asia is a big place.” Indeed, talking about Asia is difficult, given the number of markets and regulatory differences, not to mention geographic distance between various Asian financial centers. The debate still goes on over which one or two or three are the most important in the region. Some say Japan, while others discuss Hong Kong’s status. Others like the positioning of Singapore. And this doesn’t include…